The Winter of My Discontent

When I first moved to New Hampshire I was told to get my affairs in order, I would likely die this winter by snow storm. Inevitably at some point during the six months of continuous freezing maelstrom that is a Northern New England winter I would perish in a snow bank, in front of a snow plow, underneath a snow mobile, or inside a giant snow ball. The towns would all freeze over and the wilds would be no refuge. Especially seeing as how they would both be packed with blood thirsty snow men living in snow forts bent on righteous snow vengeance, the worst kind of vengeance.

Instead there was never more than a few inches of snow. Temperatures never got below zero. Only actually got to zero once the whole time. And my snot never froze to my face -- a true indicator of a good winter I am told. January was actually most notable for the amount of drizzle there was. It was an angry drizzle, no doubt, but just drizzle. I never got my chance to break a leg snow skiing, fall through the ice ice fishing, fall through the ice ice skating, fall through the ice snow shoeing, or even to build an army of eight foot tall snowman storm troopers a la Calvin and Hobbes. I was robbed. I was promised an icy death and all I got was a relatively temperate, boring waiting period between fall and spring.

Speaking of spring. It is now springing and I am told to anticipate the start of Mud Season where, from what I can gather, everything gets covered in mud. I'm not buying it, though. I come from a state where it rains mud! Unless I'm swept away in a river of brown goop sometime this April I will be unimpressed.

Not all was lost this winter. We did have enough time to build a tiny late season snowman -- err snowthing.

Part snowman. Part mothman. Trapped in two worlds, he is accepted in none. He will lead a life of tragic irony chasing the light that will one day be his demise. Coming to Lifetime this spring.

Standing in Mud for a Song

Last week, complements of Ro, I went to Austin City Limits. Without exaggeration it was the hottest, sweatiest, and muddiest I have been in a good time. Which, coincidentally, makes for a pretty good time. The temptation to slip and slide about the muddy knolls was present but I remained dignified. Plus no one else was doing it.

Although the two bands I truly wanted to see, Dave Matthews and Flogging Molly, had played the day before, I still got to see a bunch of bands I had never heard of (David Garza, The Dead Weather, and Heartless Bastards) and two bands I had heard of but, really, never heard (The Toadies and Pearl Jam.) It turned out one of David Garza's band mates also apparently does hula hoop tricks? By the end of the evening when Pearl Jam finally came on for their two appointed hours we were shoulder to shoulder with countless thousands of other people in what was likely the greatest exchanging of germs the nation has seen in years. I may or may not have been standing on top of someone. I definitely got to first base with the back of the dude's head in front of me.

Despite knowing all of only three or four songs, Pearl Jam was still pretty great. There was not a whole lot in the way of pyrotechnics or special effects, just deafening music that gave me phantom vibrations and tinnitus for about three days afterward. Crowd surfing was attempted but resulted in the guy being thrown over a shoulder and promptly into the gack, and moshing was impossible due to the complete inability to shift one's body weight. Live music it seems is powerful stuff even if much of it is unintelligible. I suppose that's why any respectable nationalist uprising or religious revival always has a good chorus. Post concert we ate at Wendy's -- and I do believe even the food tasted better.

The Day Everything was Dirty

I've seen a fair amount of weather in my time. Double rainbows. Funnel clouds. Full circle rainbows. Rain bursts in nearly full sun. Up until now I had never seen muddy rain, however. Allegedly it ain't no big thing. West Texas, being the barren wasteland that it is, naturally provides Central and East Texas with cattle, coyotes, and dust. Frequently this dust mixes with crossing storm clouds and the end result of such a mating is muddy rain. Occurs all the time they say. Whatever. Its relative frequency aside, muddy water is unique not in that the rain itself looks different as the drops themselves -- as far as I can tell as they do fall pretty fast -- look like regular ol' rain drops, but rather in what the drops leave behind. Being composed of 25% sediment they leave behind 100% sediment when the water evaporates. At first you think someone has played a cruel if not odd joke on you by splattering your vehicle with a thin but generous layer of muddy bilge water, but, after looking around a bit, you soon realize that that is not the case. That's because the muddy bilge water is everywhere. On every car, every window, every lawn chair, everywhere. It's a bit curious driving around with just about every vehicle around you looking as if they had been off roading for the weekend -- the bourgeoisie with their garages tend to fair better -- and so it appears that everything in town is dirty. The effect lasts only a day or two as people soon start washing their cars and things return to normal, but the added chore aside the experience is a pleasant one as for a brief moment life becomes subtly, and yet obviously, abnormal in a way that has a touch of the fantastical. I bet in Switzerland it sometimes rains hot chocolate. That or well engineered Swiss watches.